Tales From Training
by Treeborn Dreamer
Summary: Naruto tells his many stories of training with Jiraiya to his friends.
1. Chapter 1

Tales from Training

Treeborn Dreamer

A light rain fell on the barbecue restaurant, but no one inside paid any mind to it through their laughter.

"You are full of it, Naruto!"

"There's no way!"

"That's simply illogical, and imprudent."

"I swear you guys, I swear!" Naruto grinned as his friends, seven members of his rookie class and three from the previous year, laughed and shook their heads. "The ero-sennin was so drunk, he'd never remember it, but I swear he was dancing kabuki the entire time!"

"Pass the pork, Naruto!" Choji asked, grinning through a mouthful of food. Naruto felt his wallet cry as he obliged.

"I still say that Jiraiya-sama would not act in such a foolish way." Neji was stiff, although less so than usual as Tenten had just rested her head on his shoulder.

"Neji-kun, please relax and have a good time. We never get to spend time with everyone anymore, let's enjoy ourselves." Neji's mouth curved upwards ever-so-slightly.

"Of course, Tenten...chan." He whispered the final syllable into her ear, his breath tickling her, and she giggled, grabbing hold of his hand and smiling.

"You obviously don't know the guy! I've got a thousand stories from training with the old man, and they're all just as wild as this one." Naruto leaned back, straightening his collar as he caught a glimpse of Hinata's brilliant eyes from across the wide table; she looked away as soon as he saw her looking, and smiled to himself.

To her left, Shino sat quietly, taking a long sip of sake. "Hinata." in the raucous, only she could hear him. She turned and looked at her stoic teammate.

"What is it, Shino-kun?"

"If you truly do want to tell Naruto how you feel, I may be able to help you." Her eyes widened, and they began to converse quietly, unnoticed by the rest of their peers.

"Man, I can't believe you guys dragged me away from shogi with my dad to listen to Naruto boast all night." Shikamaru complained, leaning back in his seat as Ino, to his right, hit him upside the head.

"Shikamaru! Be nice and stay awake! Besides, your dad's out drinking with mine and Choji's, you know how they are." Shikamaru rubbed his head and sighed.

"I guess you're right. This is better than more Gai-sensei stories at least." He admitted, shooting a look at Lee, who was seated next to Hinata and looked extremely troublesome, with his devotion to finishing his plate before Choji finished his.

"Tell us one, then, Naruto!" Kiba barked from the right side of the table, seated comfortably between Ino and Sakura, neither of whom appeared to be thrilled by their neighbor.

"Oh come on, I've been telling stories all night, no one wants to hear me anymore." His friends began to clamor for more stories from training with Jiraiya, and Naruto grinned widely. "Well okay, if you insist!"

"You never did tell us what happened in Kaminari no Kuni, Naruto." Sakura piped up, leaning forward. "You know, how you got that big scar on your back." A wave of agreement went around the table, and Naruto nodded.

"Yeah, that's a really good one... Alright, let's see. It was about a year into our trip..." The table's inhabitants all leaned in as Naruto's voice grew softer.

Ero-sennin and I had been in Kaminari no Kuni once before, a few weeks into the trip, but we hadn't gone any farther in than a border town, and even then we had to work pretty hard not to seem like Konoha shinobi. They're still kinda mad about how the Yondaime beat them so badly in the war, and since I kinda look like him, I used my Oiroke no jutsu to disguise myself and to help blend in. I would have just changed into a guy, but ero-sennin insisted on my being a girl for the two weeks we would be traveling there. The first few days were fine, I would henge whenever I was outside, and when I was inside an inn where we were staying, I would change back.

As we were on the road in the fourth day, ero-sennin told me that we were meeting up with a member of his spy network. It turns out, this guy had some information on the two jinchuuriki that were living in Kumogakure, and if his lead was correct, we could get to warn them about Akatsuki and possibly work out an alliance and stuff. But, this guy was a bit, uh... Weird.

We met up with him in a tea shop and inn that evening in a town called Goyo. The town was really small, so the tea shop was where all the villagers met up after work and whatnot, so we had to be extra on-guard.

Well, we finally meet the guy, and he's about Kakashi-sensei's age and height, and thin as a board with brown hair the stuck out at the front. As soon as he saw ero-sennin and I, he got this huge grin on his face and waved at us. We sat down opposite him, and as he and Jiraiya start to talk I order their tea; since I look like a girl, and Kaminari no Kuni is pretty old-fashioned, they expected me to do this kind of crap for 'Jiraiya-sama' or whatever alias he was using, old jerk.

I take the tea back to ero-sennin and the spy, who was introduced to me as Zanji. I set the tea in front of him, and catch the jackass staring down my shirt! I wanted to smack him right there, but I knew that the information was one-of-a-kind, so I just giggle and sit up straight, fuming.

He and ero-sennin start talking like all old men do, rambling on and on about stupid crap, and all the while this Zanji guy keeps checking me out on the sly, thinking I'm not noticing or something. I just sat quietly as they talked about everything under the sun, from the weather to the market for crops. Just as they're about to start getting down to business, he has the nerve to look me straight in the eye and say, "Dear, maybe you should go do your makeup and look pretty for us, while we men talk some boring business." Ero-sennin flashes me a dirty look and I nod; anything to keep that creep from staring at my chest any longer.

I stand up and excuse myself, and as I walk away the bastard reaches up and slaps me on the ass!

Kiba interrupted Naruto's story with a loud howl of laughter. Everyone looked at him as he laughed, tears rolling down his cheeks. Hinata, on the opposite side of the table, had the decency to look embarrassed about her teammate, while Shino looked annoyed with the interruption.

"Naruto, that's perfect!" He cried as he laughed, banging his fist on the table and clutching his sides. On one side of him, Sakura gritted her teeth and clenched a fist.

"Kiba. It's not that funny." She spoke as calmly as she could, and Naruto scooted away: shit was going to go down.

"It's hysterical, Sakura! Slapped him right on the ass, absolutely wonderful." He wiped his eyes and chuckled a last few times. "Serves him right for using that jutsu to get his way for so long, the universe was just paying it back to him." Sakura took a deep breath and opened her hand.

"Continue, Naruto." she stated, giving the back of Kiba's head a dirty look. Naruto cleared his throat.

I was humiliated, but I swallowed my pride and stalked off to our room in the inn. I made sure the door was closed and changed back into my normal body, giving myself a bit of a break; henge aren't hard to do for a little while, but after a few hours you start to feel the chakra start to empty out of your system. Besides, you really start to miss having your own body, especially when an old guy feels the need to invade your personal space.

Well, I took a little while to breathe and stuff as a man again, and after a few minutes I heard the doorknob turning, so I threw a kunai at the door frame and faked my girl voice as best I could.

"I'm changing, don't come in!" The door stopped opening for a second, and I rammed my shoulder against the door and slammed it shut. I heard someone hit the wall across the hall from the door, and I took the opportunity to re-do my jutsu, making sure that I looked all made-up this time.

"Ugh, oh you vixen!" I heard from outside the door, and I swung it all the way open, fixing my hair.

That damn Zanji was in a heap outside the door, with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Baby, I like a little fight in 'em." he said to me, pulling himself up.

"Oh, I didn't know it was you, Zanji-san." I giggled, trying to keep my blood from boiling at how much of a creep this guy was. "We should hurry back to Jiraiya-sama, he'll begin to worry about us." He tried to grab my shoulder, but I dodged and hurried back into the tea shop, settling next to Jiraiya.

"Jiraiya-sama, has he told us what he knows yet?" I smiled, and Jiraiya nodded, taking a not-so-sneaky peek down my shirt.

"Yeah, I know everything that he does, we'll be moving out tomorrow morning." Ero-sennin said, crossing his arms. "However, he needed some payment for his services, and, well..."

Next thing I knew, I was sitting in our hotel room with my top off, showing off my cans to the old jerk. Of course, my body is absolutely fantastic, but it still felt dirty having him stare me down like that. He reaches to take a grab, and I finally snap; I grabbed the asshole's arm and threw him across the room, right through our closed window and out into the street.

"Well, he didn't like that too much, so he threw a kunai back as he was flying out the window, and as I turned away I felt it rip through my back, and that's how I got the scar on my back." Naruto took a breath, exhausted after completing his tale. No one spoke, and Kiba knew better than to laugh out loud again; he'd be enjoying that particular bit of schadenfreude at home with his poor, sick Akamaru.

"Naruto, that's awful of Jiraiya-sama to do!" Tenten fretted, pulling her head off of Neji's shoulder for the first time since Naruto's story began.

"Yeah, he and I got into a pretty big fight over that one. Dirty old coot." Naruto harumphed. "Still, we got our information, and met up with one of the jinchuuriki about a week after that."

"S-still, that's a horrible way to treat a student..." Hinata blurted, and Naruto looked over. He smiled, and gave her a thumbs-up.

"It's no big deal, I managed to trick him into peeping into a sumo wrestler's bathhouse a month of so later. He cried, it was great. So I'd say we are even on that score." Naruto explained.

"Well, as much as I'd love to hear Naruto yap for another hour or three, I got a mission tomorrow morning." Shikamaru yawned. "I think I'll hit the hay." He stood up, and Ino stood up quickly as well.

"Walk me home, Shikamaru, it's getting past my bed-time too." Shikamaru rolled his eyes and winked slyly at Naruto, almost too quickly to be noticed.

"What a drag. Yes ma'am." The table burst into laughter as Ino began berating Shikamaru and following him as he slouched out the door.

A/N: I really had no idea how to end this correctly, so I gave up. I may continue this idea later, I like the concept of what Naruto did during his years with Jiraiya. So leave a review and give me ideas for the next Tale from Training?


	2. Chapter 2

Yet another chapter of Tales from Training! I might take a week's break from this to write another fluffy one-shot thing, like Blonde on Blond, so don't be disappointed if this doesn't update next week.  
Make sure to check out my other stories! They're all pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Tales from Training

Chapter 2: Boys Night Out

Treeborn Dreamer

Raucous laughter sounded from the onsen as the sun drew to its highest peak on the most temperate day of the summer, and the gathered five men, as well as one dog, wiped sweat from their brow.

"Choji, you're so full of crap! There's no way that happened." Naruto gasped through his laughter, tears rolling down his cheek as he clutched his sides. Across the pool, his large friend nodded his head sagely, a smile barely held back.

"It is true, my dear friends. And when the young lady turned back to offer her sincerest thanks, I had already vanished into the night, a shadow across the forest floor." He folded his arms in front of him and straightened his back, drawing himself up to his fullest height.

"Choji does not seem to be telling falsehoods." Shino stated, his signature sunglasses fogged up from the heat of the onsen. "However improbable, it seems that he both is not lying and that he truly has the most impressive true story out of all of us so far." Shikamaru, immediately to Shino's right and on Choji's left, nodded lazily.

"Choji is the worst liar I've ever met; he gets a bad case of the giggles when he's full of bull. I believe him." Shikamaru yawned. "As much of a drag as it is, he beat my story easily." Kiba, seated across from Shikamaru, scratched Akamaru behind the ear and turned to Naruto.

"Well, that leaves you Naruto." Naruto's eyes went wide, and he felt the eyes of every one of his comrades on him. "When did you first get it on?"

Naruto closed his eyes and crossed his arms in front of him.

"Alright, but be prepared to be blown away! I was out training with the ero-sennin, in the Ta no Kuni..."

"Ero-sennin and I had been here before, about a year and a half ago at that point, and we had disrupted Orochimaru's base of operations there. Still, as we were traveling, ero-sennin couldn't help but be curious about how the country was running, without Orochimaru running things from the shadows. Me, I think he was just looking to do more research than anything else, but he dragged me there anyway, and for once he was actually training me, so I didn't mind too much.

"We arrived in town, and the place already looked a hundred times better than it had the last time we were there; the main street was crowded, merchants were busy, and the buildings didn't look so run-down any more.

"Ero-sennin and I checked into a hotel, and he started trying to bum some money off of me before I walked out of the lobby; let the cheap old man spend his own money on girls and sake.

"I walked down the streets, practicing a new technique he was teaching me; feed your chakra into the ground through the soles of your feet, and keep constant guard as to who is near you and what they're doing.

"As I'm doing this, I notice that three pairs of feet are following me, taking the same turns, stopping when I stop to look at something, and always keeping a decent distance, staying about fifteen yards behind me at all times. At first, I think it's just a coincedence, but after a while my fears are confirmed: I'm being tailed.

"I start doing some basic evasive maneuvers, but these guys are good and they stay on my trail, getting a bit close for comfort. So I did what any sane shinobi would do: I walked out of town."

"Now hold on a minute!" Kiba interrupted, pulling his hand off of Akamaru's belly and pointing it at Naruto accusingly. "Three guys are following you, and you leave the protection of the crowd? You really are dumber than you look!" Naruto growled.

"Whenever I get into a fight, the entire damn area gets blown all to hell! I didn't want anyone hurt because I got into a three-on-one brawl in the center of town!" Shino glared at Kiba, and Kiba sat back.

"Let Naruto finish for once, Kiba."

"Thank you Shino. Now, where was I... Oh yeah!"

"As soon as I'm sure we're far enough away, I stop and say, 'I know you're following me, so if it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!' and I whip around, drawing a kunai.

"Just in time, too, as about a hundred shuriken fly at me from the nearby trees. I dodge or block most of them, but a few get through and cut up my jacket nearly to shreds. I make a couple of kage bunshin, and send them out into the trees to find out who's attacking me. The forest is really quiet, and I'm looking all around as I wait for my clones to find something and report back, when all of a sudden, every single one of them poofs out of existence.

"I hear a rustling behind me, and when I turn around I get tackled and wrestled to the ground, someone sitting on my stomach and pinning my arms above my head, and some long, orange hair tickles me in the face as I hear, 'Hey, Naruto-kun!'

"I was inches away from the face of one of the prettiest girls I've seen outside the village, and that's saying a lot. Her hair was long, almost down to her thighs, and orange, a few shades darker than my clothing. She had huge brown eyes, and a mischievous smile as she sat on my chest. 'Don't you remember me, Naruto-kun?'

"'Sasame!' I'd met this girl on that mission with ero-sennin about that I was telling you guys about earlier, when we were first tracking Sasuke, and those eighteen months had done quite a number on her; her chest had grown quite considerably, though not too large, and her face had gotten a bit softer-looking around the edges. I was floored, and she probably noticed, as she blushed and got off of me.

"'Great to see you, Naruto-kun,' she said as she held out her hand and I took it, pulling myself back to my feet and checking out how I looked; my jacket was dirty and shredded, so I reluctantly pulled it off. 'You need to visit us more of...ten...' and she trailed off, distracted by something, but before I could figure out where she was looking, she shook her head and smiled some more.

"'Well, I was busy running missions for the village, but now I'm out traveling and training with the ero-sennin for a few years, help get me to top form as a ninja.' I folded the remains of my jacket, then an idea jumped into my head. 'Hey, wait a second, what happened to those three thuggy guys?'

"'Oh, those were part of my ninjutsu!' she smiled really widely as she spoke, and I couldn't help but stare at her as she told me about her special ninjutsu that her clan had helped her develop. Really can't tell you guys much more than that, she swore me to secrecy about the fine details until she perfected it.

"We talked for hours, and she kept apologizing for ripping my jacket while staring at me, and I felt a little bit embarrassed by it, to tell you the truth. So, when the sun started to go down, the temperatures dropped, she offered to take me to replace my jacket and I agreed, intending on buying it after I had it finished.

"Well, it turns out that a member of her clan named Homura, yeah just like the old lady on the council, was an expert at sewing new clothes, so I stood in her home, shirtless, as an old woman took my measurements. Sasame chatted as this happened, and as she did her glances at my chest turned into stares.

"Finally, the old woman was finished, and she asked me what color I would like my new jumpsuit in. Of course I said orange, just like the old one, but I decided that black looked better as a secondary color and told her so. She flashed through some hand signs, there was a bang and a puff of smoke, and the jumpsuit you have seen me wearing was folded neatly on the floor in front of me. Before I could say thanks, the old woman had scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind her and leaving Sasame and I alone together.

"And just as soon as the door closed, she jumped me. And there you have it." Naruto grinned and laid back, oblivious to the looks on his friends faces.

"You bastard!" Kiba erupted, throwing a wild punch that connected with Naruto's jaw and sent him flying out of the pool. "You made us wait all that time for that little payoff?"

"That was weak, Naruto." Shikamaru yawned. "All that setup, and that was your ending? What a drag." Naruto shook his head and flared his nostrils.

"So what? You guys want me to go in-depth about it? You all did the same damn thing!" Choji nodded slowly.

"I understand. Story-telling is a sacred art, and must be afforded the respect that it deserves. Naruto immersed us in his experience, and for a short while, we all were Naruto. Truly, this is a moment for us to remember." Shikamaru cracked an eye open as the others stared at Choji. Choji shrugged.

"What? Stories are my thing." The group laughed, and Shino turned to look at Naruto, who was crawling back into the water.

"So what happened afterwards, Naruto?"

"Well..."

"I woke up on the floor the next morning, exhausted and slightly sweaty, with Sasame asleep on my chest and her hand on my stomach, and I smiled as I stared up at the ceiling: the room was peaceful, the moment blissful.

"'Sasame-chan?' I nudged her and she opened her eyes slowly, meeting my look and smiling softly as she sat up and stretched.

"'Good morning, Naruto-kun. Did you sleep well?' I nodded as I stood up, looking around the room for my pants. 'I know you can't stay, Naruto-kun, but can you promise me something?' I looked at her, and saw her looking at the floor, her arms folded in front of her chest.

"'What, Sasame-chan?'

"'Come back soon.'"

"And I took her in my arms and held her for a while before I got dressed, kissed her one last time, and left to find ero-sennin grinning like an idiot at my new wardrobe and my being gone all night. He was, and I quote, 'so proud, always knew I had it in me.'" Naruto finished, leaning back. "Now, last but not least, your turn Shino." Shino coughed, and sat up straight as the sun began to climb down towards the horizon.


	3. Chapter 3

And I finally stop dragging my feet and write another installment of Tales from Training! I'm pretty happy with how this is going so far, and can't wait to see where it takes me next!

Please feel free to check out my other stories, like _Aches of Atrophy_, where Sakura confronts Sasuke for the first time since he left the village, and _Twin Freaks_, a fluffy-type piece about Naruto and my personal favorite character from the filler arcs, Isaribi.

Tales from Training

Treeborn Dreamer

Chapter 3

There was a light rain in the air, and two figures hurried through it, side-by-side, as they came up on a large, almost-intimidating looking building, standing three stories tall. They came to a halt at the gate in the fence that surrounded the place, stamping their feet impatiently.

Without their saying anything, the gate swung open slowly, and they strode forward, jackets pulled above their heads, towards the tall, dark-stained wooden door. The shorter figure raised his hand to knock, but before his knuckles made contact, the door swung open of its own accord. They looked at each other and walked into the bright, warm indoors.

The foyer was huge and impressive; warm, bright, and shining, it featured a tall, spiraling staircase in the center of the room that lead to both of the upper floors, with tapestries hanging on the walls. The two took their jackets off and slid out of their shoes as a shock of blond hair appeared on the stairs, looking down at them from the third floor.

"Shikamaru! Ino! Great to see you make it!" They grinned and hung their jackets on the coat rack beside them as Naruto bounded down the stairs two or three at a time, grinning widely.

"The others are already by the fireplace getting dry, I just had to check out something upstairs really quick." He explained, growing impatient of the stairs and jumping down to the ground floor.

"Yeah, thanks for inviting us over the one day it rains all summer, Naruto." Shikamaru snarked, shaking his hand quickly. "Ino didn't stop complaining about her hair being wet the entire way." Ino stuck her tongue out at Shikamaru.

"Naruto, you have to show us around the place! It looks absolutely gorgeous!" She raved, gazing about the huge entry room. Naruto laughed.

"How about the rest join us? It's tiring enough going around once, it's not really fun to lead a tour of the place seven or eight times a day." Shikamaru and Ino nodded, and Naruto gestured them through the door to the left, where a small group of people, and one large dog, was relaxing on couches and in front of a huge fireplace.

"Hey Shikamaru!" Chouji smiled cheerfully from his seat on a large, fluffy couch. Kiba, Neji, Tenten, Lee and Sakura all nodded and voiced their greetings as well, and Shikamaru and Ino took a seat beside Akamaru in front of the fire. Naruto strode over to and sat in a slightly-overstuffed armchair.

"So we're still waiting on who, Naruto?"

"Just Hinata, Shino and Sai." Naruto remarked lazily, leaning back and closing his eyes. "Although they said that they wouldn't be able to make it until at least afternoon, so we may be waiting a while."

"Then tell us a story from training with Jiraiya!" Kiba piped up immediately, and the rest of the room added in their agreement. Naruto opened one eye and looked around the room, where most of his visitors were looking intently at him. He sighed and sat up.

"Alright, you all should like this one a lot... 

It was December, Ero-sennin and I were stuck in a tiny town in Tsuchi no Kuni, and both of us were broke. To make a long story short, the old bastard had decided to take a 'sure bet' and put our entire wallets on it, and it didn't work out well at all. So we were hundreds of kilometers from our contact, out of money, and both of us were in disguise as to pass through Tsuchi no Kuni safely, as ero-sennin had made a lot of enemies here during the third shinobi world war.

Ero-sennin was disguised as a hunched-over old man, even older than he actually is, and I had transformed into, well, my usual transformation, pretending to be his grand-daughter. Again. We were both halfway frozen to death walking along this road when we came across a town, the first one we'd seen in nearly two days.

In case you guys don't know, Tsuchi no Kuni is nearly all stone and rock; you can go for days without seeing a single tree or bush, and whatever lakes there are, are always surrounded by towns. However, the roads are usually far away from what few rivers the country has, so that tourists will need to buy more water and supplies at the towns they come across. Pretty clever set-up, if you ask me.

Back on track, we'd exhausted our last scraps of food that morning, and both of us were overjoyed to see the smoke rising from the town; even if we had to sleep outside, we would still have some opportunity to make some money and buy more food somewhere.

Ero-sennin and I stroll in just as night falls, and the town is closed up; all the lights are out, shops and bars are closed.

"Naruko," he wheezes to me, as that's the name I go by when I've transformed into a girl, "around this time of year, there's a festival in most towns around here to celebrate the Shodai Tsuchikage's coronation. The night before, all people of the country shutter their windows out of respect, and a raucous party begins following a traditional ceremony in the morning. But we must obey the local customs at all costs, or we'll be put to death."

That night, we found an alley and slept in it, ero-sennin making a tiny fire with his ninjutsu so we could stay warm on the cold, stony ground. The next morning, I woke up around dawn and found ero-sennin and I surrounded by old women.

"Young lady, why aren't you at the temple getting ready?" They all scolded me in some way like that, and they dragged me out of the alley as a cavalcade of old men surrounded ero-sennin. They shuffled me off to the temple and threw me into a back room, where girls as young as twelve and as old as twenty were changing into ceremonial robes. Since I couldn't use any ninjutsu or it would blow my cover, I kept my eyes on my feet and changed into these long white robes and did up my hair in a bun, with the help of a very nosy kid who was about twelve.

She kept going on and on about how I wasn't from around here, and how I should feel honored to be a part of the ceremony, and I think if I hadn't been rescued by a girl about my age, I would have jumped off the nearest cliff and hoped for the sweet release of death.

I did, however, learn a bit about the ceremony before I had to do it. Turns out, the Shodai Tsuchikage had about nine daughters before he had his only son, and on his coronation day he chose his favorite daughter to coronate him. So, on the actual day, the men of the village dress in traditional kimono from Iwagakure, and one girl is chosen of all the girls of the town, and she draws the Iwa symbol on each forehead with dust. So going into this, I didn't think it would be too hard, just have to smear some dirt on some foreheads and then ero-sennin and I could make some money in the festival.

However, as we all filed into the temple, I learned something else. The eight other daughters of the Shodai, jealous of the chosen daughter's bragging, cut off all her hair at the end of the ceremony. The Shodai was so ashamed of his daughters' actions that he punished them harshly; eight of the daughters were made to stay in the temple for a month of silent meditation, while his chosen daughter, who was arrogant and boastful, was stripped naked and made to lead the parade through town, and the girls would be punished in the same way, in a tradition they called Kanashimi no Shodai. 

"Naruto! You perv, you're making this up!" Sakura took a wild swing at Naruto, and he barely dodged the blow.

"I promise, Sakura, I'm not. Every single word of this is true!"

"His pulse has remained steady throughout the story. He is indeed being truthful." Neji intervened, coolly de-activating his Byakugan. "Besides, it's well known that Tsuchi no Kuni is old-fashioned with regard to the roles of men and women, respectively." Naruto nodded at Neji gratefully as Sakura settled down.

"Now, where was I..." 

Well, ero-sennin had told me to obey the customs or die, and since I couldn't out myself as a Leaf ninja, I decided that I would take my chances on being one of the temple maids and sneak out during the night. However, as I look at the other girls and the rest of the town files in, I get the sinking feeling that I'm not going to be so lucky.

Finally, at the end of the line, ero-sennin walks in, in a badly-fitting kimono and with a bit of a sway in his step. He stands at the back, and the priest of the temple walks out, starting the ceremony with a long speech about the stony will of the Tsuchikage, all the boring crap that the old man used to lecture us with when we were in the Academy.

Finally, after what seems like forever, the priest cedes the ceremony to the town's leader, a man named Hiruzen who looked about twenty-five or so. He then talks about how his father carried out the tradition of the ceremony, the history of the country, and all this crap, until finally, he says he is going to choose the lucky girl to lead the ceremony.

He stalked up and down the line of girls, and, who would have guessed, stops for a long time in front of me. I see the pervert's eyes going up and down me, and I mentally swear to myself that I'm never using the sexy jutsu as a disguise again; after what happened in the bar, and now here, it wasn't worth it.

Of course, he announces that I will lead the ceremony, and I can see ero-sennin curse from the back of the temple; he knew as well as I did what that meant. If my hair is cut off like the daughter from history, my transformation will go with it, and we'll be outed, accused of being spies, and the entire country will start looking to kill us.

And so, I start drawing the stupid symbol on foreheads, over and over, for what seemed like hours, trying to come up with a plan to get out of there before I got exposed, in more ways than one.

Finally, the line is almost done, and ero-sennin leans in as I start drawing on his forehead. He whispers his plan as I draw, and I nod quietly as he leans back; it's almost show-time.

I finish the last dust drawing, take a step back, and bow to the temple. The other girls all start advancing on me, when there's a loud ruckus from the back of the room; ero-sennin has managed to knock over a statue of the Shodai Tsuchikage that was in the back of the temple, and everyone begins yelling at the "clumsy outsider" or something, and I spring into action by sprinting out the side door while mostly everyone was distracted.

I slammed the door behind me, quickly gathered my clothes from the side room, and ran out of the temple as the first people noticed I was gone. Thinking as fast as I could, I did another transformation into the first person that came to mind... 

Knock! Knock! Knock! The three raps on the door brought everyone back to the present, and Naruto stood up.

"I'll go see who's at the door." he walked out of the room, and Kiba laughed, leaning back onto Akamaru.

"This has been kind of fun, hasn't it Neji?" Tenten asked, laying her head on Neji's shoulder. He smirked and put his arm around her.

"Yes, although I'm very interested to see who he transformed into to help get away." Sakura nodded, a smug smile sitting on her face.

"It's obvious, really. He's been hung up on me since we were in the Academy."

"No way, billboard brow!" Ino interjected, "He was running away, and that giant forehead of yours would cause too much wind resistance for him to make it." Shikamaru and Chouji snickered, and Sakura twitched from anger.

"Shut up, Ino-pig!"

"Make me!"

The two girls began arguing, and Shikamaru covered his ears and laid back into Akamaru, mumbling, "What a drag. I'm going to hear about this one for a while."

"Neji-kun, who do you think he transformed into?" Tenten whispered, her breath tickling his ear. "You're always such a good guesser..." She trailed off, batting her eyes.

"I have my suspicions, Tenten...chan." He whispered back, hesitant: he hated using pet-names in public.

At that point, Naruto re-entered the room followed closely by a soaked Hinata and Shino.

"Doesn't look like Sai is going to make it, he got called off on some mission with Yamato-sensei." Naruto remarked as Shikamaru and a newly-calmed Ino made room for Shino and Hinata by the roaring fire, and Akamaru yapped pleasantly as they settled in around him.

"Naruto, you never finished your story." Ino remarked plainly, and Naruto chuckled as he sat down.

"Oh yeah, I didn't. Well, to make a long story short, I transformed into a different girl and ran as fast as I could out of town, with ero-sennin and the entire town on my tail." Tenten narrowed her eyes.

"All that build-up and that's it? You're the worst storyteller ever, Naruto!" Naruto stuck his tongue out at her, then rescinded it as Neji stared him down.

"Fine, the long version. Well... 

"Transform!" The transformation went flawlessly, as usual, and I was suddenly a completely different person than I had been; I had dark hair, was dressed in a hoodie, and had big, pale eyes.

I was running as fast as I could in the ridiculous shoes they made me wear, and I was about halfway through the town when I noticed a large plate of various foods that had been set out on a windowsill to cool while everyone was in the temple, and I helped myself as quickly as I could, stuffing as much food into my bag as I could before I had to bolt for fear of being caught in the act.

After a bit of ducking and weaving through various alleys in the town, I found ero-sennin just off the main road, and we made our way out of the town with a bit of food we'd managed to confiscate while running from the angry mob. 

"And that's the end of that particular episode. We made our way deeper into Tsuchi no Kuni and met up with our contact, everything going smoothly." Naruto leaned back and smirked.

"Okay, that wasn't too shabby of a story, Naruto." Tenten smiled, then stood up and stretched. "You promised us a tour of the house though, didn't you?" The rest of the guests all nodded and stood up.

"I guess I did!" Naruto laughed and stood up too, stretching and grinning. "You all file out into the foyer, I'll put out this fire real quick and follow you out." One by one and two by two, the guests trotted out of the room, and as Naruto put out the fire and turned around, he found himself face-to-face with Hinata.

"Oh, hey Hinata."

"You t-transformed into me, N-naruto-kun. In your story." They were much closer than Naruto could ever remember being, and her eyes shined in the lingering light of the embers.

"Yeah, I did. You were the first thing I thought of to change into." Naruto smiled, and edged his way around Hinata, who had gone red in the face. "Now come on, I've got a lot of house to show and only an hour before it's time to eat." And he lead her out into the front room, smiling.


	4. Chapter 4

Hey there, my loyal readers! Thanks for being so patient, here is your update of Tales from Training! I decided that I'm going to mess around with the format and have a different character, Shikamaru, tell a story this week. Naruto will probably get back to it in the next installment. Until then, feel free to check out my other work! The Will of Fire just reach 17,000 words, and I feel pretty accomplished about it. Thanks!

Tales from Training 4

Treeborn Dreamer

Glass clinked on the hard wood floor as laughter filled the air of Naruto's living room, raucous noise reverberating through the entire house.

"Shikamaru, there's no way that would ever happen! Everrrr!" Sakura giggled and slurred her words, setting her empty cup on the coffee table in front of her and falling back into the overstuffed couch. Shikamaru, across the room in a rocking chair, nodded and laughed, taking a slow drink and trying his best not to spill any of his precious drink.

"Every word is one hundred percent true!" He assured them, resting his hand on Ino's head as she leaned back and rested her head on his knee. "When I arrived in the town, there was a big statue of me right in the center of the town square. I kept my head low, but someone noticed me and called me out. I got swarmed and thrown onto some guy's shoulders, and they all started singing a folk song about me." Kiba snorted, lying back into Akamaru's fur and scrunching his eyes closed.

"How'd the song go, genius? Surely you can tell us that, if you're telling the truth." Shikamaru laughed, then coughed into his hand as he stood up.

"Oh, Shikamaru was a man, was he; a shinobi great and strong! He rolled into our town one night; to right what was done wrong!' Ino giggled and clapped quietly as he bellowed the lyrics.

"The Daimyo was a cruel tyrant; taxed our town to the bone! Lined his pockets with our gold; stole our herds and homes! Shikamaru took one look at us; he got a clever grin. That night while the old Daimyo slept; he lost his life to sin. Shikamaru gave us back our land; he gave us back our gold! That's why the town of Nara sings; this ninja is our lord!"

Applause burst out around the room as Shikamaru took a bow and sat back into his chair, Ino laughing and pulling herself up to sit in his lap.

"Don't quit your day job, Shikamaru. Kabuki will never be in your future." Naruto laughed from across the room, reclining in a large armchair and sipping from a sake bottle. Shikamaru stuck his tongue out at Naruto, cleared his throat again, and started back into his story.

Well anyway, I'm feeling awkward because I killed the Daimyo on Tsunade's orders, and I really hadn't thought too much about the village. So they seat me at the head of a huge table in their town hall, and start bringing in plates and plates of food; freshly-harvested fruits and vegetables, tender cuts of barbecue, everything Chouji could ever dream of."

Chouji licked his lips and smiled dreamily, staring at the ceiling absent-mindedly.

I can't be rude, but my destination is another days travel to the east and I'm already behind schedule, so I start feasting with them, drinking with them, and toasting them twice as much as they toasted me, all the while wondering how I'm going to escape before I get trashed beyond my ability to function.

Well, after the food had disappeared, a band set up in the corner and started playing some dance music, and they insisted I lead off the dance with this particular girl with red hair, just a hair shorter than I am. And so I started dancing, and dancing, and dancing, for what felt like days. She was a very energetic dancer, or maybe I was a lazy one... Either way, after a while I lost track of time and we just kept dancing. At some point, she broke away for a split-second and grabbed a small wreath of cherry blossoms and laid it on my head. I'm pretty sure I was trashed by that point, so when they offered me a similar wreath, I laid it on top of her head without a second thought.

That's pretty much the last thing I remembered that night. The next morning, I woke up in a hotel near the edge of town. I got up, dressed quietly, and started for the exit when I heard something rustling behind me. I whip around, a kunai in my hand, and I see the redheaded girl from last night in a rumpled kimono with that wreath still on top of her head, rubbing her eyes and looking at me.

'Shika-kun, where are you going?' she asked me, and my heart froze; why was she being so familiar with me? Why was she still in her clothes from last night? Why was she in my hotel room at all?

As he asked these, Ino's smile quickly faded from her face, and everyone in the room aside from Shikamaru shivered; a massive wave of killing intent had washed over them like a typhoon, suddenly and unavoidably, the mood was darkened.

I asked her what had happened last night, and she started to cry, her tears welling up in her eyes and almost soaking her kimono. I felt kind of awkward, so I walked over to her and patted her on the back, asking her if she was okay and that kind of thing. She looked up at me and, I swear, she said 'how can you say such hurtful things to your new wife?'

Naruto gulped as he felt Ino's temper flaring near Shikamaru, and he tried to catch his attention subtly, but the combination of Shikamaru's helpings of liquor and his propensity to get lost in stories had left him oblivious to the world around him.

'My wife?' I was stunned, but my brain was running faster than the Yondaime Hokage, trying to come up with some explanation. And then it hit me; in the village now called Nara, but once called Akiza, there was a very unique wedding ceremony in which the bride and groom presented each other with wreaths of cherry blossoms and dance with each other, and that creates the marriage contract.

Naturally, I try to explain to her that, as a foreigner, I didn't mean to marry her as I was unfamiliar with their culture, but that just made her cry more, sobbing out words like "shame" "dishonor" and "disreputable," although that last one was a bit garbled.

Suddenly, she pounces for my kunai knife, and I start to strike at her before I see her turn the blade towards herself. I react as quickly as I can, hungover I may be, and stop her from stabbing herself, my mind racing again to try and think of an exit strategy that won't permanently break this girl and dishonor her in her village.

I decide to take her with me on my mission, and have her rest in a hotel while I make the exchange with the Kiri ninja, and on the way I could probably get her to recognize how much of a mistake this was for her.

After about half an hour, I manage to get her to stop crying and convince her to come with me; half an hour after that, we were on the road, headed towards the meeting point with the Kiri ninja.

We talked as we headed along the path, and I got to know more about her. She told me that her name was Anzu, she was fifteen and she had never left her village before. Her parents had died when she was five, and the village had raised her until she would get married and whatnot. She told me lots of stories about living in the communal housing of the village, how the old women of the village taught her how to sew, cook, clean, all of those womanly duties. But more than anything, she seemed interested in my life, and begged me to tell her stories about growing up in a ninja village. So I told her about playing shogi with Asuma-sensei, defending the village against Orochimaru, all the missions that we took and training exercises that we did, and even the tiniest thing seemed to enthrall her. She would just stare at me, open-mouthed and eyes twinkling, as I talked about anything I could think of.

After a long day of talking about each other, I was beginning to feel kind of bad that we weren't actually married. I mean, marriage is troublesome, but this poor girl was so sheltered her whole life, so innocent, I really felt awful about the entire ordeal she had to be going through, since her kinda-husband didn't want her. So, when we got to the town where the exchange was taking place, I gave in to her demand and only rented one room instead of two. She made me some dinner with food that I bought at the market, and that night was very nice; she was smiling and laughing, and the light flickered off of her in a way I had never seen happen to anyone before.

We set up for sleep early, since I had to meet the Kiri ninja at sunrise, and just as I was about to fall asleep, she kissed me on the forehead and said, "Good night, otto." And that word was the only thing on my mind as I slowly fell asleep: otto, husband...

Well, when I woke up, the Kirigakure ninja were standing over me, as was my blushing bride. They all had kunai and were grinning like an oni, and I cursed myself for not seeing this sooner.

'Well that was easier than expected. I thought you Nara were supposed to be smarter than that.' She gloated, her voice much harsher than it ever had been before. The Kiri ninja had bloodthirsty looks on their faces, and I knew it was going to be difficult to get out of this one.

'All I had to do was put on a sad face and draw up a tear or two and you were putty in my hands, Shika-kun.' She kept gloating like that for a while, but I stopped listening; I kept my eyes on her friends, all of whom were jonin-level according to the briefing I got. My mind raced as I tried to come up with a strategy that wouldn't get me killed.

Finally, I had it.

'Anzu-chan,' I interjected as she took a break from gloating over how she defeated me so easily, 'You got it, you've defeated me, a genius-level Leaf chunin. This is probably worth at least a promotion to your Mizukage, isn't it?'

'Very good point, Shika-kun.' She seemed very proud of herself, and I made a note of that. 'Mizukage-sama will be very grateful for me delivering a Leaf chunin to her on a silver platter. Now stand up slowly, and don't try anything.' I slowly stood up, my pajamas wrinkled and my hands behind my head, molding chakra as subtly as I could.

They took all my things and divided them up between them, and as they did I moved my hands closer together behind my head, until I could form a decent rat handsign behind my head.

'Kagemane no jutsu.' I whisper as they counted out my money, and I smiled as they felt themselves go stiff and immobile.

'Kagemane, complete.' I smirked and relaxed, feeling the four of them struggle against my technique. 'Tsuma-chan, I want a divorce.'

"After that, I used the Kage–Kubishibari no jutsu to knock them out, bound them up and took them back to the village for interrogation. And, as I learned it was an off-the-books mission on both sides, Kiri didn't, or couldn't, react officially, or even acknowledge that they'd sent them, since they didn't want a war anymore than we did." Shikamaru stood and took a bow, while everyone else looked incredulously at him.

"I find your story amusing, Shikamaru-san, but doubt its truthfulness. Perhaps you exaggerated a bit?" Shino stated, and Shikamaru waved him off.

"Every word is one hundred percent true, Shino. I was married, divorced, nearly killed, and completed an S-rank mission inside of 36 hours."

"Shikamaru... Can we talk?" Ino whispered, her voice crisp and low. The others all looked at each other and excused themselves from the room, clamoring one excuse or another.

"Ino? What's wrong?" Shikamaru asked, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. Ino clenched her fist and a tear rolled down her cheek.

"You said that you were married... You talked about how you talked with her for hours... That's not something we've even done, and we've known each other our whole lives!" Shikamaru blinked, and put his arms around Ino's shoulder, kissing her on the forehead.

"Ino-chan, please don't be like that. We've never had those kinds of discussions because we've known each other long enough that we've lived through each others stories. Every single thing I told that Kirigakure girl was something that we had done together." She looked up at him, smiling weakly.

"I'm sorry, I was being irrational-"

"And your irrationality is why I love you, you troublesome woman." Shikamaru pulled her into his lap and hugged her, and she buried her face in his neck.

"How long do you think we have to ourselves?" She whispered into his ear, and Shikamaru grinned.


	5. Chapter 5

Hey there gang! This one I really enjoyed writing, although I'm not sure if you guys will find it as funny as I did... However, credit is given where credit is due, and this was inspired by reviews left by OkeyDokey33 and an anon. Thanks for the idea, guys! Hope you enjoy!

Tales from Training 5

Treeborn Dreamer

In the dining room, the smell of food filled the air beside the raucous laughter of friends. Dishes clinked together, and wine gurgled as it was passed around and poured again.

"Where do you get all the money for this, Naruto?" Kiba grinned as he passed a plate of food to Akamaru, who was curled up as small as he could make himself.

"You wouldn't believe the story even if I told you!" Naruto crowed, and the room went quiet, all eyes focused on him.

"After all the stories you've told us, you think you have one we won't believe? Shikamaru got married, you nearly got groped, and you think a story of getting rich will be the thing we don't believe? Try us!" Kiba leaned back, crossing his arms in front of him. Naruto shrugged.

"Alright, you asked for it. But for it to make any sense, you'll need some context..."

"Come on Naruto, put your back into it!" I gritted my teeth, sweating like no other, as ero-sennin shouted at me. My hands were flying in circles, and wind was whipping through the forest clearing.

"Here we go!" I screamed as the chakra began burning my hands, and the jutsu took shape. "Oodama Rasengan!" The rasengan grew larger and larger as I held it in front of me, ero-sennin watching me with his arms crossed in front of him.

I could barely keep control of it when at full strength, but this was the fifth time I'd tried to get it right in the last hour, and I was exhausted. My control slipped, and the rasengan began to collapse in on itself before I knew what was happening.

"Dammit!" It exploded in my face, sending me flying backwards. I landed on my ass, groaning and sore all over.

"Naruto, you're never going to get this right at this rate! And we both know that it's only going to get harder from here!" I made an obscene hand gesture in ero-sennin's direction, and pulled myself up to my feet.

My hands were raw and red, and if my face's burning was any indication, I wasn't looking too hot all over. Ero-sennin sighed.

"Alright, we'll pick it up tomorrow. Let's head back into town." I shook my head and stood up, stretching and grimacing, and we started on our way back to the town that we had chosen to hole up in.

We were somewhere near Kusagakure, and although we are allied, ero-sennin thought it best if we kept our headbands and ninja tools in our hotel room so as not to raise suspicion. He had met with a contact the previous day, and we had decided to stay here and train for a few days; me, because of the clear air and secluded clearings to practice in, ero-sennin because of the several onsen that were always filled with traveling women.

"Ero-sennin, what am I doing wrong?" I asked, and he didn't answer for a while.

"Well, Naruto, I'd assume that you're just loading too much power into it and not balancing it with enough control. The excess power throws off the jutsu, and causes it to explode in your face over and over again. So by all means, continue doing so, it's hilarious." He started laughing, and I ignored him for the rest of the trip back to town.

When we got there, however, the streets were deserted, no one anywhere to be seen. Ero-sennin and I walked through town, confused, and saw that every shop, restaurant, and home was locked and boarded up. Even our hotel, just off the main road, was locked up tight: we couldn't get in.

"Hey, ero-sennin, what's going on?" None of it made any sense to me, although my recent head trauma might have had something to do with that. Ero-sennin, to my credit, looked just as confused as I felt.

"I don't know, Naruto. It isn't a holy day, sunset is still an hour or two away, there's no storms on the horizon..." Ero-sennin trailed off, and we both heard a commotion from the main street. Without thinking, I ran to check it out, and ero-sennin followed behind me.

Nearly a hundred women on horseback were charging through the main street, yelling and shouting. Each one had a large sword strapped to her back, were dressed entirely in white, and had a weird headband on their forehead, with "Yuki-Onna" written on them in kanji.

As soon as ero-sennin got a look at them, he grabbed me by the collar and pulled me into an alley, out of their sight.

"Listen, Naruto," he whispered, his tone and expression more serious than I had ever seen them before, "those are members of the all-female mercenary group, the Yuki-Onna. They're all nukenin, mostly from from Yukigakure but not exclusively. I had no idea they were this far south this early in the season..."

"What? Slow down ero-sennin, you're not making any sense!"

"The point is, they're an extremely powerful mercenary group. I've had run-ins with them a few times, and they're not fun to tangle with. They're lead by a very powerful nukenin with nearly a thousand identities, and it's said her power rivals Hanzo of Amegakure, we must be very careful-"

"Or perhaps you could be very quiet and surrender." Ero-sennin cursed and I turned around slowly to see a sword-tip pointed at my face, and a very grumpy looking woman on horseback holding it. She raised an eyebrow as she saw me.

"The hell happened to your face?" I had to think quickly, which is more difficult than it sounds when there's a sword between your eyes.

"I fell out of a tree." I lied, praying internally that she would buy it. She snorted.

"Dumb kids." she chuckled, and I had to keep myself from attacking her. "Omo-sama, I've found an old guy and a kid. What should I do with them?" Another woman on horseback trotted into the alley and rode up beside the swordswoman, scanning us with her eyes. She was mid-thirties it looked, with black hair and green eyes, a real stunner of a woman to be perfectly honest; I couldn't see ero-sennin, but I could tell he was going to do something stupid in front of a girl that pretty.

"Please, spare us!" he blurted out, and I looked over my shoulder at him; he had hunched slightly, putting on a fairly convincing old man act. "My omago-chan and I are just poor travelers on our way to Kusagakure, we have nothing but the clothing on our backs!" The green-eyed woman narrowed her eyes, and I said a silent prayer and jumped on board.

"We were just passing through town and got caught up in this! Please, let my ojii-sama go free!" The green-eyed woman looked us both up and down, and I tried my best to look scared. To my surprise, she nodded.

"Alright jiji-san, get out of here. The boy's coming with us, though." My jaw dropped, and I looked back at ero-sennin, who had dropped to his knees and prostrated himself.

"Please, take me instead, let omago-chan go!" The green-eyed woman dismounted, walked past me and, as I watched, kicked ero-sennin in the ribs. I clenched my fist and was about to attack her, when I caught ero-sennin's eye, and he stilled me with a look.

"Okay, I'll go with you. Just please, don't hurt ojii-sama." I heard the sword-wielding woman sheath her blade, and the green-eyed woman grabbed the scruff of my neck and formed a one-handed hand sign.

A surge of chakra went down my spine, and my arms and legs went numb. I stood there, mostly immobile, and the green-eyed woman got back onto her horse. Swordswoman and green-eyed woman turned around, and I shot a quick look over my shoulder at ero-sennin, who was still crumpled up on the ground. He nodded and bit his thumb, and as he did I felt my legs moving without my telling them to, and I began to follow the Yuki Onnas out towards the main road.

It's kind of a weird feeling, walking when your limbs are numb and unresponsive to your commands. And that weird feeling dragged on and on as I followed the green-eyed woman, who I overheard to be called Omo, and her horde for miles and miles, almost all of them carrying some kind of sword. My head cleared after a while, and I wondered where ero-sennin was and, more importantly, what the hell I was in for.

I noticed a few other guys in the crowd, most of them around my age or older, but none older than mid-twenties or so. There weren't any common features we shared, so I guessed that they were all abducted by chance, just like I was.

We walked until the sun went down, and the horde broke camp as the moon began to peek above the forest line. The other men and I were forced, in our awkward numb-limb way, to sit in a small circle near the center, with the swordswoman from earlier and a few others standing guard. We were chained up and given the use of our arms and legs back, although Omo told the guards to keep an especially close eye on me, and to kill me if I tried anything.

We were allowed to talk, although we had to be audible and clear so they could hear.

I told them I was from a small village near the border of Hi no Kuni, and that jiji-sama and I often made trips to Kusagakure to gather supplies for the farming season. The other guys, around eleven of them, were all from up north somewhere, one of the older ones from Yukigakure itself. One of the older ones told me that if I didn't prove myself useful in some way, I'd be sold the next time we passed through Amegakure. The others all looked weary and broken, and I knew that I had to help them.

I barely slept that night, and just as dawn broke I felt something sharp poking me in the ribs.

"Hey, brat," the swordswoman grunted, poking me with a stick, "wake up. Omo-sama wants to see you." I was unshackled from the others, and for a second I thought about making a daring escape, but I couldn't abandon those guys to be slaves. So I allowed myself to be prodded towards a huge tent, and when we finally arrived I was made to wait while one of the other guards went in and informed Omo. However, I heard a short snippet of a conversation before she was interrupted.

"So you're sure that the money is in this area?"

"Of course, Omo-sama. The landmarks near this village match the ones we recorded in the logbook."

"Excellent, I- What is it?"

"Omo-sama, the new boy has awakened and is outside."

"Very well. Hana, dismissed. Send him in!"

A stern-looking woman in a flak jacket marched out of the tent just before I stepped in, and she smirked as she stomped on my foot. I gritted my teeth and ducked inside the tent.

It was huge, almost as large as my old apartment, with small chests and tables set up around the inside. In the center, standing on the opposite side of the largest table, stood the green-eyed woman Omo.

She was fierce, that's the best word to describe her. She stood much taller now, her arms crossed in front of her and looking down her nose at me.

"So, omago-chan..." she smirked and I clenched my fist, "I know that you're a ninja, I can sense your chakra despite your efforts to conceal it. I also know your jiji-san was also a ninja, although his concealing efforts were nearly perfect. I kept you alive to see what you would try, yet you were like a sheep before the shepherd. Tell me, boy, why I should let you live." I knew I only had one shot, so I cleared my throat and puffed up my chest.

"Because I know one jutsu that will decimate your entire army." Her smirk shifted into a large grin, and I began wracking my brain for something to back up my big talk.

"Is that so? Then, by all means, perform your jutsu. I shall never lose to the likes of you." In my mind, I rolled my eyes; like I hadn't heard that before! I cracked my knuckles, my brain racing, and finally the spark went off in my brain. The technique I had been practicing in secret for months, endlessly tinkering with the fine points and fine-tuning into the ultimate weapon!

A cloud of smoke surrounded me as I formed the handsign, and as the miniature fog cleared, I revealed the faces of her destruction.

Thirteen bishounen, completely in the nude, draped over each other and giving her bedroom eyes!

"Oiroke: Gyaku Haremu no Jutsu!"

She reeled, her eyes scrambling between all of my clones and I, and I heard the guard behind me faint and hit the floor. Blood trickled out of Omo's nose, and she fell back into a chair, covering her mouth and stuttering. I took that as the opportunity to fire the ending salvo

"Omo-senpai, won't you ever notice me?" My new voice was velveteen and smooth, and Omo's eyes widened drastically.

"Omo-senpai, will this be enough to get you to notice me?" One of my clones said, as he took off a pair of glasses. That proved too much for her, and she fell backwards into a pile, blood running from her nose and her grin plastered onto her face.

I had my twelve clones guard the tent flap as I ran to the table she had been standing over earlier, and snatched up a map that was on it, noticing a few red x's marked across it around the area we were in. I cracked my knuckles, tucked the map into my back pocket, and formed another handsign.

"Oiroke: Tajuu Gyaku Haremu no jutsu!"

After about ten minutes, I had managed to subdue most of the horde, either through sexy or by force, and I unchained the prisoners. It was about that time that ero-sennin swooped in, riding a massive toad.

"Fear not, Naruto! I, the great and powerful Jiraiya, shall not let these villains hold you a second longer!"

"You're too late, ero-sennin. I already defeated them all." He looked around, shrugged, and immediately pulled a notebook out and began scribbling with a furor, giggling to himself.

"After that, the prisoners all set out with swords and supplies from the Yuki Onna camp, we turned in Omo for a pretty good-sized bounty, and I sent a hundred or so clones to hunt for the hidden money. After a day or so of searching, we found it. And that's the story of how I got so rich all of a sudden." Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back, grinning. Everyone at the table sat in silence, stunned.

"Naruto?" Tenten squeaked out, and Naruto looked over to her.

"Yeah?" A small grin landed on Tenten's face, and she giggled.

"Maybe you should demonstrate this killer technique of yours, just to show that you're not making it up."


End file.
